Night Call
by an-extraordinary-muse
Summary: "Even when I despised you, I think I wanted you to love me." Emma says it calmly, but Regina knows that these are the words that will destroy the world. There is no force on heaven or earth that will keep her from the blonde now.


_**AN: This is just a little something that I couldn't get out of my head.**_

* * *

Regina has been empty for so long. There are hollow places in her heart – in her; places where bright and beautiful things had been before her mother and the world had carved them out of her. Worse than those, though, are the spaces that are empty because of things Regina has done to herself. Those blank spaces ache inside her as if they remember the weapons that had wounded them, and that she had been the one to wield them.

There is a new hollowness inside of her now, but this pain is different. This pain is unbearable in a way that she can't put words to.

Regina has hated Snow White for most of the other woman's life. More than that, she has envied and coveted what the princess shares with her Prince Charming. Regina has spent years sneering at their love, and all the while known that same bond was what she had shared with Daniel. Regina had been cheated of that relationship. Mary Margaret and David have sacrificed everything for each other: other people, their kingdoms, their lives – everything. Regina has never been able to eradicate the part of her that has always wanted the same for herself; someone in the world who loves and cares about her enough to be willing to face such risks. How fulfilling it must be, she'd thought, to be so cherished.

Then Emma Swan had shoved a dagger into the darkness, and now Regina has forgotten how not to feel empty.

No one had ever told her that emptiness weighs so much.

Regina scuffs her hands together in the chill midnight air and stares up at her apple tree. The light from her back porch reaches just far enough to illuminate the curve of a still growing piece of fruit. Henry used to think it was strange that she could garner a sense of peace – no matter how fleeting – from staring at a tree. Even her apple tree is a reminder of Emma, now; Regina can still see where the other woman took a chain saw to one of the limbs. The piece has regrown since, and it looks different than the rest of the tree because it's small and new, but it's not out of place.

That's what Emma has done to Regina herself. The infuriating woman had appeared in Storybrooke and shoved passed Regina's walls: she had beat on them, and worn them away, and sidestepped them at every turn. Regina had been so busy trying to keep those walls up that she hadn't noticed how deep the cuts had gone: Emma has carved out some of the darkness that Regina has held on to throughout her life, and now new light shines through the fissures.

Emma Swan has taken a chain saw to the angry, vengeful heart of Regina; it's only now that the blonde is gone that the Mayor realizes that the new parts of herself shine because Emma has taught them how; because she has given them room and confidence to do so.

Emma hasn't given up on Regina, and Regina is not going to give up on her. She'll find a way to reverse what's happened – to bring Emma back to them – and then she'll throttle her for being so … so … _stupid_.

Regina is perceptive, and she has evaded life-threatening dangers by being sharp and quick on her feet. She knows, therefore, the moment that she is no longer alone in the darkness of her backyard. Regina knows who she wants it to be – who she hopes it is – but she's afraid to turn and find someone else.

"I've never known anyone like you," Emma whispers into the silence. Then, when Regina starts to turn she says quickly, "Don't."

She stops moving, but the command frightens her because she can't think of a reason why Emma wouldn't want her to look at her. In her anxiety, Regina's eyes scan the trunk of her tree and everything else she can make out in the dark, but nothing about her surroundings has changed. There is no hovering danger (except perhaps the one Emma herself presents).

"What do you mean, like me?" Regina prods.

She can feel Emma step closer. The air changes as the other woman moves closer and the grass whispers under her feet; Regina's heart triples its pace when Emma is close enough that she can almost feel the brush of the sheriff's chest against her back as she breathes.

"I despised you. When I first came to Storybrooke, and you did everything in your power to chase me away, and hurt me, and you refused to see that the harder you tried, the more I dug my heels in."

There is no breeze, and there hasn't been one all night, but Regina is certain that she feels her hair move. The air has become tar in her lungs; she can't breathe.

"Even then – even when I despised you, I think I wanted you to love me."

Regina's lungs unstick and she inhales sharply; her bones rattle as if she is being shaken apart.

"Henry loves me because his heart is pure, and because it's natural for children to love their parents. Mary Margaret and David, they love me, but they love almost everyone, and I'm their daughter. But you … I've always wondered what it's like to be loved by you, Regina. Your love has to be earned, and fought for, and I wanted to know what it was like to be loved by someone who would tear the world apart for me."

"Emma …"

Whatever else Regina was going to say is cut off by the gossamer feel of lips pressing into her neck, just above the base of her spine. Emma isn't even touching her, but her lips are on Regina's skin and they burn like a brand. A single touch, the barest hint of pressure, and Regina is reduced to _want_ , to _need_. She might have displayed that differently, once, but now she is unused to displaying her varying emotions as anything but anger and challenge; she spins on her bare heel and invisible bolts of lightning spark through her body when Emma doesn't move and their breasts brush.

"If you've come to frighten me, Miss Swan, you'll have to do better than that."

It's a lie and Emma knows it. Regina is frightened by the knowledge that something – someone – she has so resolutely told herself not to want has apparently been just shy of her grasp for so long; she's more frightened by the way that there is undiluted anguish in Emma's eyes. This is Emma, but not; this is the lost girl, perhaps, the homeless orphan who doesn't understand why she is unworthy of love.

"I'm sorry," Emma whispers. She doesn't explain what for.

"What the hell were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?" Regina snaps. She feels raw and electrified, like a livewire, and Emma is so close.

"I had to do something." Emma finally takes a step back. Her mouth is turned down in displeasure. "I wasn't just going to stand by and let the darkness take you."

"Well why the hell not?"

Regina could have handled it. She's never been the Dark One, but next to Gold her heart is the most tainted – and it's not like anyone would have cared about what the darkness would do to her. Well, that's not true: Robin would have cared, probably, and he'd tried to save her. But Emma … Emma had cared enough to take her place. Emma had succeeded where Robin had failed, and what does that mean?

"Henry believes in you," Emma answers. It's a good answer, but it's not the one she wants to give.

"Everyone believes in you," Regina reminds her without heat.

"I know. And what's the use of the Savior, if it's not to save people?"

"Oh, so you saved me because it's, what? Your job? Well you can take that job and …"

"And what?" Emma hisses venomously.

She stalks toward Regina. This is Emma of four years ago, Regina thinks, this is the Emma that used to charge at her on the walk outside her front door, and the one who punches like she has cement hands, and the one who hacks away at trees with chainsaws. Regina is not to be easily intimidated – but she takes a subconscious step backward, and only realizes that it was more than one when her back smacks into the rough bark of the apple tree.

"Take that job and shove it?" Emma continues. She doesn't stop until she's dangerously, enticingly close. "In case you haven't noticed, I did. I threw that title right out the window. Carved that part out of myself with a pretty little dagger. Maybe you've seen it? Has my name on it and everything."

This is what Regina does to people: she hurts them, or draws them in and holds them close until they hurt themselves. She drives them away when all she really wants is to pull them closer. Emma Swan has saved her life, and who can save the Savior? Certainly not Regina; this is what it means to be loved by the woman who earned the title Evil Queen. Being loved by Regina means pain, and loss, and endless, ugly sacrifice.

"I never asked for this!" Regina surges forward; she has half a mind to punch Emma again, and half a mind to take her right now in the grass.

Emma is glowing in the inky blackness of night, and it takes Regina a moment longer than it should to realize that she's only doing so because there are waves of magic seeping from her skin. This isn't like Regina's fireballs, or the times where the two women have combined their magic to defeat a foe; this is unrestrained, untapped magic seeking an outlet.

"And yet, you have it. The least you can do is be happy about it."

"How can I be happy when you're intent on ruining my life?"

Emma is reaching for her and the air is practically crackling between them, and Regina knows this: they're either going to destroy or devour one another, and while she's prepared for the former every iota of her being is singing out for the latter.

Then the light in Regina's bedroom flips on. The yard below the window floods with pale yellow light and highlights Emma's face: it's her, the Emma that has sacrificed herself for Regina's happiness, and the darkness is there but it's like a distant echo. This is them, their frustration and misplaced anger, and Regina knows in that moment what will happen when they touch – what would have happened if they had been allowed to touch.

Instead, the light flips on and then there's a shadow – Robin's shadow – and Emma disappears.

Regina deflates instantly. Her skin crawls and itches as if her very cells are calling out for the touch they've just been denied, and when she sighs the sound is shaky. She is irritated that the moment was cut off, and grateful; if Emma had touched her right then Regina would not have stopped what would have happened next, and she owes both Emma and Robin more than that.

Shaking herself a little to quiet the rush of blood in her ears, Regina gathers herself and makes her way inside the house. Her exhilaration is so acute that it stings. The skin on the back of her neck where Emma pressed her lips into Regina's skin _aches_ with the absence of the blonde's touch.

All the way through the house and up the stairs, Emma's voice whispers in Regina's thoughts: _I wanted you to love me._

Maybe Regina's love is pain; maybe it's sacrifice and turmoil and trial by fire; maybe it's everything that she's afraid it is, and it will hurt the ones she loves as much as heal them. But Emma was right about two things: Regina doesn't give her love to just anyone, and she would tear the world apart for those she does give it to.

Regina is about to show Emma Swan exactly what it's like to be loved by her, and maybe, when they're standing in the rubble and their lungs are full of ash, she'll have the courage to ask Emma if the destruction was worth it.


End file.
